It’s still SUV season — and here are GM’s humongous offerings

Writing this from rural Maine, I can look out the window, past the indoor/outdoor thermometer showing 18 degrees, and see a field of snow about a foot deep. The driveway still has ice and snow, mixed into the frozen ruts. It’s not yet weather for the GT40 (just kidding about the GT40.)

So General Motors is now showing off its newest gargantuan (up to 204 inches long; nearly three tons big; up to 95 cubic feet of cargo space) SUVs — Chevrolet’s Tahoe and Suburban; GMC’s Yukon and Denali; Cadillac’s Escalade.

These are clearly huge cars. They are meant to haul up to nine people and still have room left over for luggage. They have big engines (5.3-liter 355-horsepower V8 or, in the Denali, 6.2-liter 420-horsepower V8); and big prices. Be prepared to fork over from about $45,000 to about $80,000. (The U.S. Secret Service uses these beasts for Presidential protection, dubbing them the “War Wagons.” I wrote about that aspect a few years ago.)

Last year, I drove a friend’s 10-year-old Suburban and it actually handled quite well for something so big — kind of like a nimble heavyweight champ. The main thing is that if you have to get into an accident — a distinct possibility in the blizzards we’ve had this winter — better you’re in one of these battleships than, say, a Yugo.